The Taste of Russia
by Cold Ember
Summary: He wanted the taste of Russia to help him forget. Tony centric. Post Internal Affairs. Oneshot.


I have finally written a new NCIS story! This takes place after the events of Internal affairs, so obviously there are spoilers for that and other various episodes from this season and previous.

Big thanks to my wonderful beta, VanishingP2000. I don't own NCIS.

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The Taste of Russia

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Strike two for the FBI arresting him for murder. Ziva had always said that one day he would piss off a woman so much that she would do something far worse than putting him on the herpes website or egging his car. On some level he knew that she was right, he had just never imagined that _Jeanne_ would be that woman. He had loved her. And then he had broken her heart, smashing his along the way.

Telling her that none of it was real, that he had felt nothing for her had been one of the hardest things that he had ever had to do, but something that she needed. He had caused her so much pain and he owed her that much. He owed her some closure, even if it killed him to say the words that would allow her to shut the book on him forever.

He signaled the bartender, who poured him a second shot of vodka, which he immediately slammed back, hardly registering the burning sensation that traveled down his throat as the liquid made its way down. The last time that he'd had vodka had been over 10 years ago in Peoria after his first and, to date, worst murder case. The victim had been a 13 year old girl, raped, murdered and dismembered, left to rot forever in a landfill had it not been for the two young boys looking for appliances with which to build some sort of time machine contraption. Killed by her own father, as it turned out, who had abused both her and her seven year old sister sexually for years, since the girl's mother had died when the girl was nine. According to the father's confession the girl was going to go to the police and turn him in, saying that she wasn't going to let him hurt her baby sister ever again. So he had killed her to protect himself.

After that case had been closed, the reports written and turned in, sealed away in a box, nothing more than another faceless and nameless crime another plain white box identified by only a case number in the basement of the police department, he had gone to the nearest bar. He had spent many hours trying to lose himself in the bottom of a bottle of the finest vodka the bartender had, trying to get her face out of his head, trying to forget the tears of her sister when they told her of her sister's death, the dark unfeeling and remorseless eyes of the father as he gave his confession. It hadn't worked. No matter how much he drank, who couldn't stop seeing the girl's pain, the father's callousness, the sister's anguish. It was like someone had snuck into his head and painted a mural depicting the events of the case inside his skull with permanent paint that no amount of alcohol would ever wash away. Sometimes he still had dreams about it. He hadn't touched vodka since that night, but today seemed to be the perfect time to reacquaint himself with Russia's finest.

He wasn't in his usual bar, the one where he and the rest of the tea went together every so often when they had a free night. The same one that he was supposed to be meeting them at that night of the standoff in the hospital morgue. No, tonight he was in a Honky Tonk that was a far cry from the upscale bar downtown. But tonight he didn't want to drink in a sophisticated manor, didn't want to engage in idle chatter about the latest baseball game, didn't want to be judged. Tonight he wanted to get slammed and try to forget Jeanne's face. But her face was, just as surely as the girls and their bastard of a father, etched into the inside of his head and he couldn't escape it, no matter what he did. But the vodka, at least, numbed some of the pain.

The phrase 'third time's the charm' danced through his head as the bartender poured his third shot and he threw it back, considered the seconds that had happened today. This was the second time that he had tried and failed to use vodka to erase pain and memories. Today had been the second time that someone had framed him for murder. The second time that the FBI had arrested him for that crime. The second time that he had been on the wrong side of one of NCIS' interrogation tables facing Fornell. The second time that he had faced Jeanne since she had learned the truth. The second time that she had told him she wished she'd never met him. The second time that Abby had done tarot cards with him, though she hadn't gotten too far today. The second time that Gibbs' basement had been turned into a command center when the FBI was gunning for one of their team for murder. The second time McGee had been officially interrogated since joining NCIS. The second time he almost spent the rest of his life in an 8x8 cell. For most of these things, he truly hoped that there would be no third time because not only were the first and second times bad enough, but he was afraid to even consider what the charm part might entail. The charm for him being framed for murder and the FBI arresting him would mostly likely result in him spending the rest of his life behind bars.

But the third time was not always the charm; as Gibbs had proven with ex-wife number three, who had ended up going after him with a nine iron. Or was it a seven iron? Or was that even ex-wife number three? Maybe that was ex-wife number two with the golf club. Maybe ex-wife number three was the baseball bat. Or maybe ex-wife number three had been the golf clubs and ex-wife number two had the baseball bat. Or maybe ex-wife number three had the baseball bat and number one had the golf clubs. There was just enough liquor in his system to muddle his brain enough so that he was unable to keep which ex-wife had gone after Gibbs' with which piece of sporting equipment straight and he eventually gave up on remembering. He almost wished that Jeanne had followed the philosophy of Gibbs' exes gone after him with a field hockey stick or something instead of framing him for her father's murder.

He was glad that it was Friday because it allowed him the freedom to get drunk without worrying about having to go into work tomorrow. Not that it would have mattered. Even if it were Monday he would be here, he just would have told Gibbs that he was taking the next day off before he left. But the fact that it was Friday also gave him a greater sense of anonymity in the busy and crowded bar, the Friday crowd of regulars and weekend partiers caused the other patrons to pay him little attention. Which was just the way he wanted it. He wanted to get drunk in peace, didn't want people to ask him why, didn't want to deal with it. But he also didn't want to be alone. The sounds of the bar were so wonderfully normal, so magnificently mundane that they comforted him somehow. It was nice to know that, on some level some things were the same as they always had been, that there was still some essence of routine in life. Some might call it boring and ordinary, but to Tony it was the most beautiful thing he had seen all day. He loved his job, loved the excitement and thrill, but sometimes he craved boring and ordinary, if only to catch his breath.

Jeanne had, for so long, been his breath of fresh air. In playing Tony DiNardo he got that taste of normalcy that he craved, the slow down in pace that he desired, though his life had been at its most hectic point when he had been dating Jeanne. It felt good to have a place to land, felt good to unwind with her after work, to tell her some fake story about a fake film student of his that, while far less interesting to most people than the shootout that had actually occurred that day, was sometimes what he wished had happened that day. It had made him question what he was doing, question if he still wanted to be doing this work. If maybe he'd rather have a simple nine to five job where the closest thing to an actual crisis was the copy machine or coffee maker breaking. During the months of his and Jeanne's relationship he had seriously considered leaving NCIS.

But then she had discovered the truth and taken off leaving nothing but a note behind for him in her apartment giving him an ultimatum. His job or her. As it turned out, much as he loved her, he would always love his job more. It was a simple truth, but a painful one. And probably a huge factor in Gibbs' three failed marriages, he thought. Maybe Ducky was right. Maybe he and Gibbs were much more alike than either of them cared to admit. He truly loved his job and though he sometimes longed for a slow down in pace, he knew that it wouldn't be long before the beautifully simple became painfully monotonous. He knew that he needed the rush that accompanied law enforcement and that his time with Jeanne, though seemingly the picture of that beautifully simple lifestyle was nothing more than a delusion. Because he was never truly relaxed with her, he was never really carefree Professor Tony DiNardo, he was always Special Agent Tony DiNozzo and he was always on the job with her. What he originally mistook as the rush of loving her and living a normal life was simply the rush that he always felt when he was working an undercover assignment. His job was a huge part of him, it was in his blood, under his skin and not even a doctor could change that.

He was, perhaps being melodramatic, but the entire situation was nothing if not incredibly dramatic. His life was nothing if not dramatic and that was the way he liked it and wanted it to stay, though today he had to wonder if maybe the cost of that thrill was getting to be too high. But he had come to this bar not to mull over what had happened; rather he had come to forget it, to drown his sorrows in the bitter taste of Russia. So he tapped the bar and told the bartender to leave the bottle before pouring himself another shot, relishing the sweet burning and the blessed fog that it brought.

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End file.
